A Thief, Perhaps, that Listens
by Crystal Allen
Summary: It's not so far-fetched that a mad scientist would be brought down by one of his own experiments. Dr. Drakken's miraculous plant potion has done more than save the world - it has killed him. So here he is, sitting on his grave, talking to his ex-sidekick - who, for once in her life, isn't talking back.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Kim Possible. The title of this little one-shot was taken from the poem quoted at the top of the page, and the poem quoted at the top of the page was written by Alfred Noyes.

* * *

"_There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stone_

_In the City as the sun sinks low…"_

* * *

"There's a girl who comes and visits you a lot," said the kid, in the middle of making a daisy-chain with Drakken's flowers. Real-alive flowers wouldn't work for her anymore, but the 'evil doctor's' ghost-flowers worked just fine.

"Besides mother?" Drakken responded, dour and bored, watching to see when more daisies were needed.

"She hid from your mom," answered the kid. "I don't blame her."

"Ah – yes," said the old man in the trench coat and fedora, who reminded Drakken of Humphrey Bogart in _Casablanca. _"Yes, she comes often and sits on your grave, or paces. You wouldn't have seen her – she last came three days ago, and you were still sleeping then."

"She's pretty," added the kid. "Who is she? She always looks…"

"Sad?" Drakken offered. "Tired?"

"Mean," the kid decided, reaching for another flower. "She looks mean."

Drakken nodded, feeling his mouth quirk up. "That's Shego," he said. Then, "Yes, she is pretty, isn't she." Then, after a long pause, "She comes here often?" This last to the old man, who nodded.

"Every couple'a days."

"Huh," Drakken lay back on the grass, blinking up at the sky in quiet, gratified surprise. "Huh."

The old man smiled pityingly down at him. "She was your wife?"

Drakken was startled into laughter, loud and self-derisive, and the kid laughed with him, just because. "No!" he laughed out.

His wife! Wouldn't Shego have been hilariously furious at that.

It felt good to let out the old evil laugh. He hadn't made so much as a sinister chuckle since he woke up from his 'sleep', as the old man called it.

"Your daughter?" the old man tried again.

"Your girlfriend?" the kid joined in.

Drakken snorted at them both, the reminder that he'd had neither wife nor girlfriend pushing him back down into his somber mood.

"No," he said. "She was my… um. She was…"

She was what, exactly?

"She was my… Shego," he concluded, finally. It sounded right.

It _must _have sounded right, because the kid and the old man both nodded.

"Sure," the old man said understandingly. "Had a couple like that myself. Friends, sort of, but – more. And less."

"More and less," Drakken agreed, rather hazily. He doubted he was fully 'woken up' just yet, but it sounded true enough.

_More and less,_ he thought. _My Shego. Shego-of-mine. Why do you come here to visit so often, Shego-of-mine?_

Death must have mellowed out his mind, or _something, _because that thought would have been too, too ridiculous if he were still alive. But the thoughts kept on coming, ridiculous or no.

_Shego-of-mine._

_ Pretty, isn't she._

"She looks mean?" he turned his head to ask the kid.

"Yeah. Villain-mean," the kid said, "Not friendly and sad, like you."

_It's a good thing, _Drakken thought, _I'm still too un-woken…(un-waked?)… to be insulted by that._

Shego would only have laughed. And no wonder the kid thought she looked mean.

"Hmph," he said. "She never did smile very much."

"Daisies," said the kid.

"What?"

"More daisies," she repeated, and Drakken obligingly provided. The old man watched with wide, incurious eyes.

"I've seen plenty of things in life and death," said the old man, "but I ain't ever seen anything like _that." _ He pointed to Drakken's trailing vines, the gauzy petals spread across their graves.

"It's… unique," Drakken grumbled. Then, "It killed me."

The old man only gave an acknowledging bob of his head, and said nothing, which was enough. What was there to say, after all?

There was silence for a while.

There were others who were 'awake', but their graves were farther away, and Drakken did not feel up to meeting them yet.

He wished he weren't dead.

He wished hard, but that didn't change anything.

He fell asleep for a while after that. Or, he fell wherever it is that the dead do fall.

When he woke up, the sun was setting, and the old man and the kid were gone – fedora, daisy-chain and all.

But Shego was there.

She was sitting cross-legged on top of his grave – staring him right in the face when he sat up.

Well, staring right through his chest, if he wanted to be particular. At his gravestone. She was frowning, and running one hand through her hair, as she did when she was so fed-up or frustrated that she just didn't have the words anymore.

She did, Drakken thought, look mean. That same old, wonderful, familiar Shego-mean. But she didn't look pretty. She wore no makeup, and there were grey circles beneath her eyes. Her lips were pale in her sallow face, and her hair was lank and tangled. She looked terrible.

Drakken had the urge to lean forward and take her face in his hands – an urge he'd never even _once _had when he was alive, and one he probably never would have had…. although, he admitted, you never can tell, can you?

But he didn't. He was afraid to touch her. Especially when she looked so angry. And Shego had never much liked to be touched, anyway.

So he sat and looked at her looking through him, and he missed her so badly it ached.

"You look _awful, _Shego," he told her, and she didn't respond, which hurt. He'd never seen her eyes so bloodshot.

_"Well?" _he demanded, suddenly angry himself. "Where's your comeback, smart-alec? Where's my disrespect? Haven't I failed again? Haven't I failed? What can you say, now, Shego, what can you do about it now? Aren't you here to make fun of me? Go on, Shego, go on! Give me your best shot."

Shego ran her hand through her knotted hair again, and her forehead creased as she frowned more deeply. But, as she had heard nothing, she said nothing in response.

"You look like hell," Drakken told her. "And you never helped me like you should have. And you never beat Kim Possible because you were never good enough."

Shego shifted then, swinging both her legs over to one side and leaning on her hand. Still she just stared at his headstone, and still she said nothing.

"Say something, Shego," Drakken said. "_Say _something."

But she didn't.

_My Shego, _he thought. _More and less._

"I didn't really mean it," he told her. "You were always good enough. You were worth ten of Kim Possible."

Then he laughed. "Listen to me! Talking like _you're _the one who's dead." He looked sadly into her face, into her eyes. "But you're not dead. – you're alive. You always were more alive than anyone I ever knew."

Drakken reached out, then – one of those strange, ghostly whims – and touched just the ends of her black hair.

"You'll get over this," he told her. "That's how you are. You'll be fine. You'll always be fine. You'll find a new evil boss – and you'll mock him, too."

He felt horrible as he said it. Horrible, because it was true, and – everything was all wrong. Everything.

"I wish I weren't dead," he told her, quietly. "I wish you'd say something."

But she didn't.

So he continued on.

"Do you remember once when you told me that maybe my best wasn't good enough?" he asked, sounding as peevish as he would have in any everyday argument. "Remember? Well. I still don't forgive you for that," he told her, which was true.

"I don't forgive you for _anything _you said or did to me. You hear?"

He knew she didn't hear.

"Oh, you don't care," he growled, making a dismissive shooing gesture with one hand and plopping his round chin into the other. "You've never said 'sorry' or _been _sorry for anything in your life."

Glancing up at her strained, sleepless face, he was a little unsure at that last statement – but it still sounded right.

"Well, you were right," he said. "My best never was enough. My best got me _here,_" he motioned grandly at his headstone, "and got you nowhere at all." Then he barked a laugh. "Well," he amended, "it got you here, too, apparently, although what's the use of that if you _still _aren't listening to me?"

Shego had no answer for him.

Drakken lowered his voice then, looking hard at her face. "You always gave me your best, though, didn't you, Shego? And your best _was _good enough. It was more than good enough," he said. "But what am I telling you for? You already knew that."

He fell quiet then, because Shego stood up. And she didn't stand up clumsily, as Drakken would have if he'd been sitting on the ground for a while. Shego was as fluidly coordinated as ever, even if she did look a mess. But her features no longer had that jagged sort of look, because the sun was gone and it was nearly dark, and the nighttime fell more gently on her face.

She was standing, but she didn't leave. She walked a few steps away and Drakken practically jumped after her like he could pull her back, which of course he couldn't. But she hadn't gotten up to go. She was starting to pace, like the old man had told him. Not impatiently, like she was waiting for something, and not purposefully, like Drakken locked in the middle of a half-finished scheme.

Shego's pacing made her look angry and lost, and probably she was both, but then, Drakken knew, it had always been sort of hard to tell. He watched her fingers comb through her tangled hair again.

Fed-up and frustrated. Like she just didn't have the words, anymore.

_My Shego. More…and less._

"It would have made all the difference in the world," he said to her, "if someone had told me that my best was good enough, too."

But that sounded self-pitying even to Drakken, so he waved it off. "Never mind," he told her, in a steadier voice. "Forget I said that last part."

He took Shego's silence as affirmation that she had.

He tried again: "What's the matter, Shego? Haven't got any sarcasm for me today? No? No double-edged insults?" He snorted at her. "_Really, _Shego? One-hundred percent serious and zero percent mock? Oh, that's an all-time _low_ for you, isn't it?"

There really was something serene in baiting someone who couldn't tease him back.

"Not so smug, now, are you?" he grinned.

No, she didn't look smug at all.

"And not one interruption! You must be learning," Drakken said. "And here you had me thinking that being an evil sidekick was all _about _the interrupting." He thought for a moment. "I hated that," he added as an afterthought.

Then, with a sinking feeling, "…Who am I going to fight with now, Shego? You can go off and annoy anyone you want. But who am _I _going to fight with?"

Shego didn't answer him, and he said nothing for a while.

Finally he sighed, and said to her, "I can't fight with you anymore, Shego. I'm dead."

Shego didn't hear him, and didn't respond.

"You're here looking for a fight, aren't you?" Drakken said. "That's what you came here for. I'm sorry," he told her, "but I can't give you one."

Shego kept on looking angry and lost, and just who she was angry at, Drakken wasn't sure, but he was feeling kind of lost himself.

It was dark, very dark, by then. Visitors weren't allowed anymore, but of course that didn't matter to Shego, who always did exactly what she wanted.

The old man ambled past, and nodded to Drakken, and lifted his hat to Shego, and moved along on his way. The kid poked her head around the edge of her grave a little after that, and looked at them for a bit, but went away without saying anything.

Sometime later, when the sky was darker, and the graveyard was darker, and Drakken _felt _darker, although he couldn't have explained what that meant, he said, "I think you ought to go home now, Shego." Just that, and nothing else.

Shego stayed for a little while more, but before she left she walked right up to where Drakken sat on his grave, and she looked like there was something she wanted to say.

But then she turned away and left, and Drakken watched her go.

She'd be fine.

He watched her get into the hovercar and fly away, and then, because he didn't know what else to do, he fell back to sleep.

Or, he fell wherever it is that the dead do fall.


End file.
